Thank Heaven, for Little Girls...
Unless of course, you choose not to have one
Thank Heaven, for Little Girls...
Unless, of course, you choose not to have one
“Choice” is a dangerous thing. Once you give it over, you can’t control it. That's because choice is subjective, and who are we to say that one person’s choice is wrong while another’s is perfectly acceptable? Laws can’t do it, at least not American laws which place autonomy and individual freedom at the pinnacle of our value pyramid. People can’t always be trusted to make the best choices either, as we’ve seen from Lady Gaga and her sartorial style.
That’s why anyone who says they support a woman’s ‘right to choose’ has to be prepared to defend one particularly disgusting manifestation of that right-sex selective abortions. As Steven W. Mosher notes in National Review, the scourge which has long been a part of the Third World culture has come home to the United States, where immigrant women (and those who have grown up as US citizens in immigrant families) are inclined to abort their female fetuses for cultural reasons. Whether they’ve been doing it because they truly don’t want to bother with bearing girls, or they’ve been forced by abusive spouses or parents (or siblings) to abort those pesky girl babies, it’s a chilling reminder of two things: (1) the world no longer has borders so evil migrates easily and (2) ‘choice’ is getting much harder to defend.
And lest those stalwart abortion (oops, ‘choice’) supporters say this is just an exaggeration and American women would never choose to destroy a child because it’s an inconvenient gender, that’s beside the point. The fact is, they have the right to do it, under Roe. And frankly, I’m not too optimistic about their ability to choose wisely.
Comments (56)
What to do about an unwanted pregnancy should be a decision made by a woman, her family, her doctor, and her church, not by members of Congress.
(Obama) This does not show the author to be in favor of abortion, only in that it should be up to the parties listed. Also, abortion is caused by unwanted pregnancy. The best way to prevent this is effective sex education which includes knowledge of birth control options. If your religion is against this, then its railings about abortion ring hollow. The cultures you mention are now seeing a shortage of women. In our culture, the advances made by women have caused them to have, pretty much, equal status with men. Here we have no reason to prefer a boy (at least from my point of view).— prenestino- Nice try prenestino, but you haven't made your case with all of that 'it's a woman's decision.' Sure, it's her decision under the law. And any woman who aborts a child because she doesn't like its gender deserves equal status with men...the Ted Bundys, the Geoffrey Dahmers, the, you know, serial killers. That's not my religion talking That's simple fact.— Christine
- Is your defense just to simplify and distort what I wrote? It is terrible to abort a child because of its gender. My point is that it is alarmist to suggest it will naturally happen here. And if a woman chooses abortion she is the same as a serial killer like Bundy? Why don't you respond to my point about effective sex education that includes birth control? I have always found this to be a great conversation killer among members of the Church. — prenestino
Christine, the time is coming when the available choice will be the sex of the child before gestation. Any problems with that choice?— PlumberJoe- PJ, it offends my sense of the dignity of 'all' life and the fact that we cannot be a consumer society to the point that we design our progeny. But it is much less objectionable than killing a child which has somehow disappointed its generatrix by being the wrong sex. That anyone is unable to see this as genocide really amazes, and troubles, me.— Christine
- As is readily apparent from the last sentence of the above comment, it was CF who intentionally injected the genocide issue into this discussion of abortion, before I had even commented on this article. The same disagreement occured over the author's Black Abortion Genocide article, and for whatever reason was resurected above by her.
— retour - Me, too, Christine. I'm sure you know that by now. Yet, if after 3 tries, I landed all of the same sex, regardless of which, I would surely go for one more of the opposite, if I could be selective.— PlumberJoe
- Perhaps someone could CHOOSE to "see this as a genocide" but it certainly doesn't fit the legal definition:
In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which legally defined the crime of genocide for the first time.
The CPPCG was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). It contains an internationally-recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide:
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II
As can be easilly seen, their is no INTENT TO DESTROY any identified group as set forth in the relevant statute. These decisions to abort are made at different times, by different mothers for different reasons. You also cannot argue that there is an intent to destroy only girl fetuses, as innumerable boy fetuses are also aborted. All that aside, I could choose to use the word genocide to describe the collective result of abortion generally, but I think it conflates two very different issues.— retour - In other words, according to the legal definition, abortion COULD be used to commit genocide if there was specific intent to destroy an identified group. But since there is no evidence of such intent, the abortion of girl fetuses, as you have described, does not constitute genocide.— retour
- Retour, there is a legal definition of "genocide" and then there is a moral definition.
The point of this essay is that certain cultures put so much value on having a child of a certain sex, that the opposite sex, in this case, females, is subject to destruction. It is the deliberate attempt to limit the number of females being born.
As prenestino noted, this has caused a severe gender imbalance in countries like China, where male children are treasured for their future worth as providers for their elderly parents.
With today's technology, the baby's sex is known in the first trimester. With such things as DNA testing, one can even find out if the baby will have blues eyes. Should that be another criterion for a live birth?
Maybe the criteria for an oppressed group (national, ethnical, religious, racial) should be extended to sex.
Then the crime of abortion of particular gender would also become a form of genocide protected by the UN.— Magistra - Look, either we value all human life, no matter where it originates or what physical attributes it has, or we are a devolving society, where human life will soon be as disposable as last year's Prada shoe design.
Those mothers who are feeling remorse at the murder of their girls deserve to bear that guilt.
— Magistra - Clearly abortion and genocide are two different things. But assuming that the cummulative effect of numerous abortions resulting in thousands of unborn children could be characterized as a genocide, how is it any more evil, or difficult to defend, that mothers choose to abort their girl babies more often? Or as CF has previously argued, that black mothers are aborting their black babies 5 to 1 more often than white mothers. If abortion is evil, and cummulatively genocidal, then why interject some racial or sexual component? It is like super-imposing identity politics on top of a morally sound anti-abortion argument. It is unecessary and only confuses the issue. So, what I see here is the unecessary/innaccurate misuse of language (genocide) and dicing up the abortion issue with unecessary identity arguments.— retour
- Magistra, how is abortion different from contraception when contraception is used during during the fertile period? Both prevent life from going to full term in the womb. One method simply gets a head start on the other.
It is the same as shooting an intruder in the front hall when compared to shooting him in the bedroom.— PlumberJoe - Magistra, I'll give you a little help. One case is preventing a life. The other is taking a life.
But either way, the end result is no life. And as we all agree, life is precious. The argument is not as absurd as you could think. It is more absurd to argue that abortion is OK.— PlumberJoe - You cannot legislate that all women must carry every pregnancy to term. Rape happens. Accidents happen. Life-threatening pregnancy-induced illnesses happen. Sure, selecting for sex will cause huge problems for a society. That's not really the issue, however. Forcing women to endure pregnancy against their will is inhumane and makes the forcer no better than an evil dictator such as Ceaucescu, who did precisely this and fomented the Romanian orphan crisis...a humanitarian nightmare of epic proportions. What are you, Christine, a would-be Ceaucescu? If you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. Worked for me. I have three girls. You couldn't pay me to "try for a boy." And NOT being pregnant again is my choice. Too bad that you don't understand how it is since you are not a mother.— sophistry
- sophistry, I am a little off the wall, now and then. But when I am serious, I post with respect, whether in agreement of not.
If you want to be taken seriously, you will post with respect. Even Hamblin, by now (perhaps) knows how to post with respect.— PlumberJoe - I am trying to be restrained and respectful, but I have zero tolerance for women who do not RESPECT the rights of other women, of all women, to choose whether or not to become mothers. Motherhood is inevitable for most of us. Many women love being mothers (though loving childbirth, not so much). I also have no tolerance for those who have not had children telling other people what to do...that goes for men or women who have not endured pregnancy, childbirth and decades of parental insomnia and worries (as well as love). Christine, with her crazed zealotry over abortion, is demonstrating the worst kind of religiously-motivated intolerance. Do as I do: don't have an abortion if you think it's wrong. Even say you think it's wrong. But don't try to paint those who believe in more tolerance and those who are more open-minded (those who understand that life is not black and white and that mitigating circumstances are the name of the game) as somehow evil. What I call evil is the intolerance and judgment Christine demonstrates every week. If she cared about babies, she would adopt one, would she not? Why didn't you procreate, Christine? Do you really believe that one who did not share in this experience should tell those of us who did what to do? See, I don't believe that. I also don't believe that a priest should talk to me and my fiance about sex....gack! One who has not done the deed should have no say...— sophistry
- sophistry, I will be away, all day. I have always understood where you are coming from. Perhaps it is possible for you and I to have an exchange of thought. I will give it a try when I get back. Take care.— PlumberJoe
- Sophistry, I am not going out for the day, so I can address your concerns. (Then on to retour.)
It is first of all a non sequitur to say that only those with experience in childbirth and parenthood can discuss the subject of abortion, birth and parenthood. These are not school subjects that one needs to "study" in order to have any expertise.
We can all recognize evil when we see it.
This essay is not about abortion or contraception in general, but about the imposition of abortion on often unwilling mothers in order to adhere to cultural mores or even law as in the case of China and its 2 baby limit.
[I simply cannot imagine a situation where I would be ordered to abort any child. let alone a female. And the thought that some of these "abortions" are in fact late term infanticides is beyond sickening.]
This is also about using abortion as birth control to select the sex of potential offspring.
This is not about medical necessities or giving a D&C to a rape victim.
I was 37 when I suffered a miscarriage and 38 when I gave birth finally. Both were life altering experiences, but even before my first pregnancy, I understood the preciousness of life. Deliberate abortion was never an option for me.
So, your remarks about who is or is not qualified to speak on this subject are in fact themselves disqualified.
— Magistra - Sophy, be the way, there is a perfect time to "choose" whether to become a mother and that is before having sex. I have nothing against birth control and safe sex practices, which prevent not only pregnancy but STDs. That is when a morally sensitive person makes the "choice" to have or not have children.
I do understand the situation of rape and of course have no problem with giving a D&C to a rape victim for health reasons.
But the idea of having a "designer" baby of a particular sex and/or complexion should be repulsive to anyone with a moral compass.
— Magistra - Retour: "If abortion is evil, and cummulatively genocidal, then why interject some racial or sexual component? It is like super-imposing identity politics on top of a morally sound anti-abortion argument."
OK, I see your point, but there really is a separate issue here, one of COMPULSORY abortion. That adds an extra dimension to the evil.
Women who choose abortion for convenience sake are one thing. But FORCING women to have an abortion on a particular gender is the same imho as selecting a particular ethnic group for extermination.
So yes, there is a political component to this argument. Nations that have laws or customs that inhibit the procreation of baby girls are in fact commiting a unique and easily hidden form of genocide. No death camps, no gulags, no gas chambers. Just a little saline and suctioning and the unwanted "tissue" is gone.
It is as hideous a practice as any historical persecution of name your group as I can think of.— Magistra - I just re-read the National Review article. The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act sounds like quite a stretch, that will not pass Constitutional muster. Attempting to use the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban sex selective abortions, sounds as frivilous as using the Commerce Clause as a rationale to force Americans to buy healthcare insurance. But I can see what is going on here. Frustration with the inability to directly overturn Roe v. Wade is leading to questionable/creative lawyering. The NR author suggests that the proposed legislation is a reasonable and obvious solution when it is just the opposite. It is a dubious piece of legislation that will likely never be enacted.
— retour 
Comment removed.- Retour, if you read your own definition, abortion fetuses because they are 'female' and therefore undesirable amounts to genocide under the UN Charter and, more importantly, under Magistra's moral code (which I share.) And any mother who defends a woman's choice to abort a child because she wants to and because the fetus is not of a desirable character is, in my humble opinion, someone who never should have given birth in the first place. Pity her children.— Christine
- Christine: I do not have "my own definition" of genocide. For your and Dean Magistra's edification, here is a link to West's Encyclopedia of American Law, on the issue of genocide. I am sympathetic to the point you are trying to make, but hate to be lectured when I find that my understanding in fact comports with the relevant authoritative texts. (which are included in the link) It is noteworthy that there is no mention of abortion herein. That's all.
http://www.answers.com/topic/genocide— retour - And to Hamblin, I applaud your support for adoption, but seriously, to call a father's interest in having his son or daughter born 'male meddling?' I'd expect more from you, because you have exhibited a somewhat more nuanced understanding of issues than some of your fellow philosophical travelers. It is not 'meddling.' It is a moral, and natural rights interest and even obligation, to have a say in whether the life you helped create is able to benefit from the completion of the process. By the way, the so-called burden of the nine months is a meme that women use to show how much more of an input they have in the child's life...not having been pregnant, but having been with women every step of the way during those pregnancies, and having assisted in Lamaze classes and at childbirths, I can tell you that the whole "nine month's is a turmoil" language is hyperbole for American women who don't have to dig a hole and drop the baby. Sorry if I don't have much respect for the rhetoricians among us.— Christine
- Comment removed.
- One last comment: Magistra, you have shown by your comments, logic, and eloquence that the rest of those who have weighed in on this board for rhetorical ping pong games should be silent when a pro is at work. Brava.— Christine
- Well, in light of Magistra's eloquence, the "rest of us" will just shut up. Imagine my impertinence, bringing up the International Statute, which expressly requires the specific intent to destroy one of the enumerated ethnic groups (also set forth in the statute) It does not go unnoticed that this one issue provokes hysteria and irrationality, and that it is the ONLY ISSUE on which you and Dean Magistra agree. Thus, the slobbering undeserved praise. We can all now go back to work while Magistra explains what genocide means, contrary to the law and its commonly understood meaning. In the future, I'll confine my rhetorical ping pong to some other issue. — retour
- To be clear, I am in agreement that aborting a fetus based on sex is both illogical and immoral. It is the worst example of frivolous (and cruel) abortion, and yes, nothing is more disgusting than forced abortion (it is akin to forced pregnancy, which at least has the potential for a happy ending, even if it is unlikely). We are in agreement there. However, what is "hyperbole" is Christine's conflation of sex-selection abortion with abortion in general. She is distracting from her true agenda, which is to outlaw abortion, but (as is her wont) riling people up and getting them all lathered up about something just a bit different.
Sure, the Chinese policy of forcing abortions on some women seems reprehensible to us, and we are lucky we didn't have to live through that. It would be horrific. What is equally horrific, however, is the infanticide (after birth) and abandonment of female babies. If that is Christine's real grip, she should quiet her typing fingers and BE the change she wants to see in the world. I would say, "Adopt one of those unwanted female babies, why don't you?"
Except I distrust Christine with females...I would fear for the child's development and psyche. I don't think Christine has an innate respect for what women have had to live through--many millennia of forced, arranged marriages, daily raping by old, disgusting men, dying in childbirth, having no say whatsoever in the direction of their own lives.
THAT is why I am pro-choice. Every women should be able to determine her own life. Women must not be held prisoner to the fact of their biology. THAT's what it's about: equality of the sexes, and having empathy for the struggles of other women.— sophistry - OMG, where to begin is the real dilemma here.
Retour, you should not be so uber sensitive just because I see Christine's POINT here. (And she acknowledges it.)
I really do get YOUR point about the proposed law possibly being challenged. I don't care so much about that as about the insidous spread of abortion for frivolous reasons.
Her point is NOT primarily about the legalities of which you are an expert of course, but about the insidious spread of an anti-female culture, that even our esteemed antagonist Sophy recognizes.
Finalemente, we are in agreement on something.
So what if Christine and many others are dedicated to overturning RvW. Something has to happen to stop the pressure (force even) on so many women to abort for all kinds of reasons....including the sex of the baby.
I remember in the Gosslin clinic horror, one of the women was dragged there by a relative to be forced to have her late term baby killed. See, stuff like that makes most of us totally sick.— Magistra - There is no "insidious spread of anti-female culture." This is pure hysteria. The practices of Chinese and Indian culture will die out in the U.S. I am pro-life, but this misguided blending of feminist identity politics with abortion will only confuse and alienate. Moreover, it is overly zealous to misapply the term genocide as explained for you here: http://www.answers.com/topic/genocide — retour
- Again, the continued fallout from the pro choice movement is exactly what is happening here.
If women have total control of their pregnancies and decide during the earliest stages when the sex of the baby is known, that, well, no, it is not agreeable to their spouses of their families, etc. that a girl is a desirable outcome, an abortion is totally legal and will take place.
Think about that for a moment. The unborn child with the misfortune of being female is then destroyed, not because the mother's life is endangered, not because the baby is deformed or any of the usual medical reasons. Not even because the family is poor and will have to struggle to raise her.
NO, the baby is killed solely because she has the bad luck of being a girl.
So while the mother is exercising her right to control her uterus, the child who had no choice in the matter of gender, is simply eliminated.— Magistra - One last word about the "turmoil" of pregnancy. I believe that most women who get married or have long term relationships do so to form a family.
It is how we are wired.
Unless the mother is in poor health, God forbid addicted, or at risk for things like gestational diabetes, pregnancy is mostly uneventful. Most children are wanted. Deeply so.
Miscarriages are mostly natural abortions of malformed fetuses, a sad but necessary outcome.
In my own experience, because of my history and age, I was told to remain confined for the entire 10 months of my pregnancy. So many people expressed their concern for my mental health. How could you not be bored or depressed being confined like that, mostly resting, they said. Oh, poor Magistra!
Guess what. There was not one single day that I did not give thanks for my condition. Not one single day that I was not overjoyed to be carrying the child I wanted so much. And when told after a C-section, that my baby was a GIRL, I was even happier yet.
I pity those women who lost the chance to raise a daughter because of some goddam misogynist custom.
Abject pity.
That's all. Thanks, Chris, for bringing this topic up. I think we agree on more than this, but on this point, we have TOTAL agreement.
Hey, I like the nickname "Dean Magistra"....!!!— Magistra - This remembrance is especially touching, as we wouldn't have wanted you to be disappointed/punished with a baby boy.
Moreover, you were able to do your part in offsetting the insidious genocide of girl babies in America.— retour - Magistra and retour, there is no "insidious spread of an anti-female culture" that I can see. That "anti-female culture" has existed since the beginning of time (or the writing of the story of Adam of Eve...making all women look bad). Education is the key to changing that culture...and education is also key to reducing unwanted pregnancies. Catholic schoolgirls even today do not understand basic principles of reproduction or birth control, thus leading many to become pregnant before marriage (egads!) and then to have breakdowns, even commit crimes of infanticide, because of it. How about those apples, Christine? I know some of those Catholic schoolgirls who may or may not have smothered their own babies (they did abandon them). We will never eliminate unwanted pregnancy. What we can do is try to be empathetic when it happens.— sophistry
- Sophy, first of all, you are injecting arguments that do not pertain to this essay. Yes, we all know that women, whether Eve or Pandora, conveniently got the blame for bringing evil into the world.
And we also know that most of the developing world is patriarchal and misogynist.
But here in America, women have advanced far enough from those medieval ways, that they should not be subjected to the narrow minded cultures of the old world.
As for Catholic schoolgirls hiding pregnancies, you must be talking about a bygone era when pregnant Catholic teenagers were hidden from view. No schoolgirl today is that naive or ashamed of an unexpected event.
This blog, however, is meant to call attention to the plight of immigrant women mostly who are shamed or coerced into ending pregnancies that are not going to produce sons.
If you agree that such a practice is abominable, then we have no argument.
And please do not accuse anyone you do not know personally of being unsympathetic to the plight of unwed motherhood.
Can we also save some of that sympathy for the unborn children?
No one here is saying we should not have comprehensive sex education including contraception. This is much more than a health issue or a moral issue.
— Magistra - Magistra, I really don't think women in the USA abort based on sex. That is something that happens in other nations I won't name (but we all know where there are). Christine is deliberately distorting the argument about pro-choice / anti-choice. She is trying to make it seem as if women here are trotting to abortionists eight or nine months in and terminating pregnancies based on sex. I seriously doubt that happens much, if at all. Christine's essay (my essay reading skills are excellent) is about the danger of EVER having a CHOICE when it comes to pregnancy. That is wrong, in my opinion. That idea skirts dangerously close to the totalitarian "produce babies for the regime!" ideas of evil dictators such as Ceaucescu, mentioned earlier, by me. We must always have a choice. Most people can be trusted to make the right choice. And by the way, my own daughter attended school with a rather well known young woman from a Catholic school who was accused, quite recently, of post-birth infanticide. So don't tell me it doesn't happen here. This is the danger of the hyper-religious brainwashing, of being told there is no choice.— sophistry
- Away all day. Missed nothing. retour, Magistra is no more eloquent than a canon ball landing on a tin roof. She habitually takes one incident and creates a theory. Poor science. Poor logic. You retour have my sympathies, arguing with a bunch of females, expecting rational results is tantamount to waiting for the next Eagles Super Bowl win.
sophistry, I am not including you in that statement. Your gripes about abortion, the blog and the church were never addressed in a straight forward manner. You have raised serious complaints, which cannot be dismissed with a wave of a condescending hand. Let me assume that abortion is the taking of a defenseless life, either one that exists or is on the way to existence, to cover all bases. And let me further assume that it is wrong, morally or otherwise. So, the question then becomes, when if ever, is it justified? Before I answer that, I need to know, from sophistry, if she is interested in further discussion. Let me know, sophistry.— PlumberJoe - It does not matter whether or not you (or I) believe abortion to be immoral. That is our individual choice. The point is that extremism (declaring a ban on all abortions) is always wrong. It always does more harm than good. What would happen if you (or the Supreme Court) outlawed abortion? More women would die in motel rooms from botched back-alley abortions. More babies would be found in Dumpsters. More orphans would grow up loveless and turn criminal (and the govt would have to spend countless billions to deal with this problem). More suicides. More murders. Maybe more executions, because if you outlaw abortion, then what are you doing to do to the women who will undoubtedly still seek abortion? Execute them? Oh, that makes sense! Kill someone for killing...perfect sense!! Just like Flowers constantly crows about how much she loves the death penalty, while being so vehemently anti-choice! WHY are Republicans anti-abortion but PRO gun and PRO DEATH penalty? Do you see why this makes no sense? Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. Don't make blanket decrees that affect women you don't know. If you do, you are ridiing a slippery slope toward horror (again, see the Romanian orphan crisis). In the meantime, read Neal Shusterman's UNWIND, a great teen novel about the dangers of outlawing abortion. It's truly horrific. — sophistry
- Let's briefly tackle this VERY TOUGH Sophistry question:
Why Pro-Gun: for self defense and because of express wording in Constitution;
Why Pro Death Penalty: It is the appropriate punishment for premeditated murder and provides justice to the true victims;
Why Anti-Abortion: Because executing defenseless innocent fetuses/ babies is evil and wrong.
If any of that explanation is really tough for you to understand, Plumber can provide you the long version.— retour - Comment removed.
- We believe that someone who consciously decides to take another's life, forfeits their right to live. I believe the biblical/ancient formulation is "an eye for an eye."
Providing justice for the true victims: A timely example of a true victim would be Maureen Faulkner. I believe she would experience a sense of peace/justice if they put the heinous Mumia to death. I would gladly pull the switch.
I am sure you understand that. No further explanations will be forthcoming.— retour - Comment removed.
- PJ, thank you for the cavalier dismissal of the "females" in this debate. You have thus proved the point better than my poor feminine skills could ever HOPE to accomplish.
Must also go out. I wish you luck arguing with Sophy.
8-)— Magistra - Magistra, the "females" here (sophy excepted) are so busy chattering that they have lost all concept of what they are chattering about. This is not a contest. It is a deeply and important look at the most intimate and precious aspects of human needs. And sophistry has a point, several, that are not being addressed by the women in this argument, which should rather be a discussion. You lecture her as though you were her parent. You are not. Whether she chooses to discuss these aspects with me, we shall see.— PlumberJoe
- "Away all day. Missed nothing. retour, Magistra is no more eloquent than a canon ball landing on a tin roof. She habitually takes one incident and creates a theory. Poor science. Poor logic. You retour have my sympathies, arguing with a bunch of females, expecting rational results is tantamount to waiting for the next Eagles Super Bowl win."
Welcome back! As you can probably tell, I ran afoul of the Birthday Girl, and then was tag teamed by the Dean of the Little Red Schoolhouse. I must agree with your characterization of The Eloquent One's preachy comments. However, if you are a fan of feminism and leftwing identity political ideas, she is an articulate commenter.
Hey, poking fun at the Eagles won't endear you to the head gal.
— retour - Retour, you are running dangerously close to being afoul of me because you think I would have been "disappointed" by a having a son. After losing a baby, do you really think I would have cared one way ot another? I would have welcomed either sex with equal enthusiasm.
But when they told me it was a girl, I felt a wave of joy for no other reason than a huge relief that we had both made it. I was expressing a contrast between my joy at having a beautiful baby girl and the hatred and dismay expressed by those who prefer sons so much they would kill their female offspring either in utero or in late term infanticide.
I am proud to be Dean of the LRSH and thank you for that honor. Please do not refrain from using it again. It tickles my fancy no end.
I agree with all the philosophers and theorists connected with progressive education that stress learning by doing.
Let me tell you a story to illustrate that:— Magistra - waiting to be posted.— Magistra
- retour, Magistra is right up there with the best of the Deans. My personal favorite is Dean Martin. Note, they are each DM.
And the head of this operation can take it. I have no fear there. My only fear is if I can take it, should she have a mind to dish it out.— PlumberJoe - Hamlbin, you idiot. When a murderer is sentenced to death, the most precious thing they possess is their own life. That is the one and only thing they then make every effort to retain.
Having taken the life of another through deliberate and premeditated means, the only true justice is to take their life. It matters not what you think. What you think cannot change that absolute truth. My calling you an idiot does not change that truth, either.
An abortion is absolutely the same as taking the life of another.
I was about to show sophistry the exception to that situation, but she refused to participate. There is always an exception. So, I'll leave it not posted. If she were to couch her rants in those terms, she would be plausible. Instead, she is no different than you.— PlumberJoe - Plumber: You make me laugh out loud, at work! Have you noticed this new trend where Hamblin and Sophistry ask ridiculously simple questions, as if this is some form of sophisticated argument? Have they never heard anyone support the death penalty before? Why are you pro-gun??? I was tempted to answer: read the Constitution.
Magistra: I must acknowledge your patience and resilience. You deserve the honor: "Dean of the Little Read Schoolhouse." You must also take into consideration that identity politics is inherently insulting to white men. In that mode of thinking, white men are the last wrung down, "the historic oppressors." So that by your assuming the validity of that flawed version of history, and weaving it into your comments, you are pushing my attack buttons. Just so you know. I do not expect you to change your way of seeing things. Tomorrow I will be back on the attack.
Here is the question of the day: How many real signatures do you think this gal Sophie has accumulated on her website? More than 10?— retour - Comment removed.
- Retour, I call you and raise you. Are you saying that identifying female babies as DEFINED targets of abortion is somehow an attack on white males? REALLY?
Or that teaching children to learn by doing is somehow an "insult" to white males?
Or the fact that I was ecstatic to have given birth to a baby girl expresses a bias against white baby boys?
Oh, you must do better than that, counselor.
— Magistra - PJ, I do not "dish" out anything. I argue from evidence, common sense and logic. Be prepared.
And, Sophy, not all abortions are immoral. If the mother's life is in danger, and there is no other way to save it but to perform a procedure that puts the baby's life at risk, then it is moral to do so.
There are ectopic pregnancies that cannot proceed.
The immorality comes from deliberately planning the death of an unborn child for no other purpose than birth control.
As I said before, the responsibility of adults is to be responsible in matters of sex before pregnancy happens.
I see nothing wrong with comprehensive sex education and with allowing insurance companies to pay for contraception devices. The Pill has other medical uses than contraception and to excuse not paying for it is wrong.— Magistra - Retour, your retort (ha!) that you are pro-gun "because of the Constitution!" shows how limited your brainpower actually is. Who cares if guns are mentioned in the Constitution? Was the Constitution written by God? Um, no. It was written by a bunch of five-foot-tall men in wigs who had been bullied and were sick of it. It doesn't mean we should take it as the Word of God. The Constitution should be a living document that changes according to our society's needs. It is not perfect. Neither are you for taking it so literally...bet you are one of the simple-minded who also take the Bible literally...sigh...don't you see the danger in that brainwashing?— sophistry
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See Christine Flowers on Channel 6's "Inside Story" Sunday at 11:30 a.m.
Christine M. Flowers
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